


Curiosity Killed the Cat

by yorkisms



Series: Horizon: Red vs Blue [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horizon: Zero Dawn Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 21:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17030220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkisms/pseuds/yorkisms
Summary: ...but satisfaction brought it back.Carolina escorts their precious and awfully annoying cargo to the border while debating her own lifelong curiosity about the metal world, the old ones, and what machines really are.





	Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Author's Note:**

> I got a nice comment on the previous fic a while ago and just...couldn't get it out of my head. 
> 
> So...I'm continuing this. For me. I liked this au, and I'm not going to let my own feelings of inadequacy get in the way.

Carolina seems unhappy to be moving with their little envoy. Church, processors relegated to a cart begrudgingly pulled by Grif, sighs, sitting on his projector and looking at the landscape as it passes by. 

“If they’re letting me move you out, why are you so upset?”

“The sooner you leave our sacred land the better.”

“Hey! I didn’t ask to get stuck here!”

“And you didn’t ask to leave, either. You’re a machine that’s about as alive as a human. That’s dangerous.”

“Oooh, the big bad warrior woman is gonna threaten me. I’m shaking in my fucking processors.” Church fumes to himself.

“Shut up, metal demon.”

“Fine, I’m a fucking demon. Boo, you’re hexed.”

Carolina whips around. “Silence.”

“No! I want to know what your fucking problem-”

“Silence!” Carolina barks again, holding her spear. “We’re being followed.”

She flicks her eyes to Wash, who nods shortly. Grif sets the cart down and flops on the ground. “Ugh, does that mean we’re stopping?”

Church materializes at the edge of the cart and leans over, looking at Grif. “You seem pretty unconcerned about the fact that  _ she _ thinks we’re being followed there.”

“Does it matter? I’m gonna die either way! I’d rather be killed cause then I can escape manual labor!”

“Stop getting chummy with the metal demon,” Carolina snaps, drawing her bow.

Carolina gestures to the cart, and Tucker backs up, gripping his bow. She tilts her head at the Oseram, who look confused.

“I said get to the damn cart.”

“We don’t all speak Nora handspeak,” Simmons, a small, wiry Oseram grumbles before climbing over the side. The oldest of the mercenaries, Sarge, pulls out a short bow.

“Hey! Don’t touch my wires!” Church snaps.

“Be quiet!” Simmons hisses.  

There’s a shifting in the trees, and then out of the trees bounds a machine, followed on foot by a dark-skinned hunter with his face obscured.

Church gets a few nanoseconds to watch the machine with fascination. Its face and jaw are made of circular saws, with yellow portions that he suspects are some sort of vital function sticking out of its back. The hunter stops short, notches an arrow, and fires into the chassis of the beast, causing it to roll to a sudden stop, deactivated.

“Scrapper,” Tucker mutters. Church indexes the term, intrigued. That lends context to its build- it roams the landscape using its jaw structure to break down other machines.

“Who are you?” Carolina asks, raising her bow to the other hunter before he can take a step towards his kill. He pauses, then take another step. Her grip tightens. “I won’t ask again, Carja bastard. Most travelers are forbidden from the Sacred Lands.”

“No impediment to your friends,” the hunter rumbles, flicking his silver eyes to the Oseram mercenaries. Simmons swallows nervously, loud enough for Church to physically hear it. Jesus.

“Were you permitted in or not.”

“I work for a trader in Meridian. So yes. I was.”

Grif sits up. “Oh, uh...hey buddy.”

“You know him?” Carolina snaps. Grif shrugs.

“Uh, only a bit? We met in Valleymeet a while ago and he’s pretty cool, so-”

Carolina huffs angrily. “Fine. We have your word to go on, then. Strip your kill-”

“Locus,” the hunter says, voice even.

“Strip your kill. Then we move. Now.”

“Jeez, what’s her damage?” Church asks no one in particular as Locus kneels by the scrapper, examining it for parts.

“The Nora can be savage,” Locus says flatly. “Their matriarchs can be demanding.” 

“Ugh,” Grif says. “Can you take the cart, Lo?”

“...fine.”

“Oof, thank All-Mother.”

“I thought your religion said the other tribes are descended from the old ones or whatever. Full of sin.”

Grif shrugs. “People can change. Even if they are, the thing I know pretty well is it’s not fair to blame someone for what their ancestors did, you know? Besides. Locus likes me. All that matters.”

Locus doesn’t object, and he picks up the front of the cart. Grif crawls in and sits next to Church’s parts. Locus makes the procession move much faster, which at least seems to lift Carolina’s foul mood.

“We’re going to make it to Daytower at nightfall,” Carolina says shortly. “Then you can all finish your business and leave our sacred lands. Thank the goddess.”

“The guards won’t be prepared to let us in at that hour,” Locus says. “We should break outside, rest at the campfire there. Then we can progress on our path.”

“Fine,” she replies, voice still cold. “Fair.”

“Again, what the hell is her damage?”

“Nora and Carja don’t really get along, remember? Locus and I are kind of an outlier,” Grif says. “Hey, can I have the-”

“No eating raw meat, Grif. We will be stopping soon.”

\--

Carolina won the proving when she was seventeen.

Her mother, one of the respected women of the tribe and a machine hunter, her father, an artisan. Carolina was renowned for her intellect in both, and had her choice of profession, brave, or artisan.

Carolina’s mother died in the hunt, and grief filled Mother’s Heart for so many days she no longer knew what to do. Her father retreated into his makings. She was trained by the other hunters of the tribe along with their children. She became the best. She had to.

Though she believed the legends she was told about the other tribes, about the old ones, she wanted the ability to travel. She wanted to find out for herself.

The ruins waited below, and above, and around. She found something in them once, some sort of ancient cup, and she turned it over in her hands.

“Carolina!” one of the village women called. “Come away from that! It is tainted!”

Carolina looked once at the cup, with glyphs she could barely read-  _ Faro Automated- _

And then the woman jerked her away, causing her to drop it, telling her that places like these were dangerous.

Carolina wanted to know what those words meant. 

She pushed herself hard, to the point of injury, and then came the proving.

The Nora proving was a ceremonial exam. The rules were that any to survive and finish would be made hunters- braves- of the tribe.

Carolina took down the lancehorns in the first testing area in one shot. Scrapped a trophy from them while her peers were still taking the rest down. And she ran the trail to the end with it strapped to her back, hands aching through the windchill and snow.

She slammed her trophy to the ground at the finish line a full half minute before her runners-up.  

“As the winner of the proving, the matriarchs will grant you one boon. Choose wisely,” their proctor told her as she was presented to the high matriarchs at the entrance to All-Mother Mountain, the most holy of places.

Carolina’s hands tightened on her spear, her red hair braided back but now coming undone from her run.  

“I wish to be made a seeker, matriarchs. So that I may with clear conscience at all times serve the tribe and All-Mother. So that I will have her protection with me wherever I may go.”

The matriarchs exchanged glances, and then they nodded.

“Carolina, daughter of Allison...you will be marked a seeker from this day forwards. It is agreed. You will serve us faithfully wherever you may travel.”

“Thank you, matriarchs. I will not disappoint.” 

\-- 

Carolina stares into the fire that Wash lit at their night camp by Daytower. 

Is it worth it for her to return to Nora territory, but give up on learning more about the sins of the old ones from the metal demon before her? The one they call Church?

She’s not as sure as she’d like to act.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr's going down, but as long as the ship's sinking you can find me at maggie-wittington or on my writing blog writing-partners.


End file.
